School, Sex and Secrets (School, Sex and Secrets #1)

by Sheila Michelle

  She laughed harder! “Brad is one of the most gorgeous and most enviable guys on earth, Vanessa. Guys and girls are jealous of him!”

  “Exactly!” I laughed. “And his closet smelled sooo good! It’s a turn-on just walking in it!”

  “Oooh! I wanna sleep in there since you’re sleeping with Brad!”

  I laughed. “Ava! Well, it’s big enough to!”

  “I just bet it is!”

  I sighed. “Ava, I have to admit that I do wonder why John came over Brad’s for some condoms.”

  “What are you wondering about?”

  “If he’s secretly seeing someone else, even though he swore to me that he’s not.”

  There was a slight pause.

  “Hello? Ava?”

  “Yeah, I’m here. Sorry. Well, Vanessa, I think he’s only secretly seeing you. Him going over to Brad’s for condoms isn’t proof of anything. You know I’m the gossip guru — I would’ve heard something by now if John was seeing someone else in secret besides you.”

  “Yeah, you’re right, Ava. I’m gonna stop stressing about it because I need to figure out whether or not I even wanna stay in this secret relationship with John, and if I don’t, then he can see who wants in secret or out in the open.”

  “Exactly, Vanessa. Well, I got some homework I need to do so I’ll see you at school tomorrow. Thanks for telling me what went down with you after school today, wow! I thought you were making this up at first! Call or text me whenever tonight if you decide on who you wanna keep as a secret lover,” she said with a chuckle.

  “Ava!” I said with a chuckle as well. “I honestly don’t feel good about having to make a decision about this — but I have to. Go and do your homework because I need to do mine.”

  “I will. See ya.”

  “Bye.” I hung up the phone and let out a sigh as I sat on my bed.

  I couldn’t concentrate on homework so I didn’t think about doing any. I stared at my single red rose while it stood in its vase that sat on my desk. This rose was from John, and he always gave me one when we got together. I would put the rose in my car vase to make it look pretty, but the first one that I put in it was the last one because it was dead the next day, so I started putting them here in my room. I felt that he was giving me these roses to try and make me become his girlfriend, despite what he’d said about us sticking to what we agreed on. I was really trying to figure out what I wanted to do about John . . . and if he knew that I was hiding in Brad’s closet. I had to admit that I really wasn’t feeling him as much as I used to, and that was one of the reasons why I didn’t wanna become his girlfriend. In terms of Brad, I just wasn’t sure if this was a good idea for the mere fact that he was with Lisa, and he could claim what he wanted about not having the same feelings for her as he had at the beginning of their relationship because the fact was, he was still with her.

  But what I also couldn’t get off of my mind was that Brad seemed to know me well already, even though tonight was the second time that we held a lengthy conversation. Out of all of the conversations that I’ve had with John, there were very few times that he would ask me what was wrong and what was on my mind, but never did he tell me that he would be there for me whenever I needed him, that if something was bothering me or stressing me out and making me depressed and unhappy that he wanted to know about it, and that I should never feel lonely because he would always be available to me if I needed him and not just strictly for sex, which was what our secret relationship was based on. John was just the type that seemed to have cared more about his needs than mine, and I felt that this was the main reason why I never wanted him as a boyfriend. I was not the type who felt that a guy should be a hundred percent about me, but I had a problem with a guy who was pretty much like that about himself. I never mentioned this to John, but I thought about it a lot. He also seemed to have gotten mad easily, too, that’s why I never liked to say anything to him that would piss him off, and now I especially don’t wanna say anything that would since I found out that he has a gun. I didn’t wanna compare the two of them, but it was pretty obvious to me who I felt that I should stay in a secret relationship with, but that didn’t mean that it was right for me to do because if it had to be in secret then it wasn’t the right thing to do no matter what . . . or was it? But after today with Brad, my romantic issues with him — both sweet and erotic — were definitely turning into a real love, and real love was worth waiting for no matter what.

  As I sat in bed looking at a clothing store website on my phone, I received a text. You’ll be a fool if you come to school tomorrow. You’ve been warned. I gasped as I sat straight up in my bed, but I especially gasped that there was an emoji of a gun! I now had every reason to believe that this was John, especially when it came to the gun, even though he didn’t know that I know that he has one. And now I believe that he could’ve very well have known that I was over at Brad’s today. I immediately texted back. This isn’t funny, John! Enough of this shit! Knock this shit off!!! I sent it as I breathed very heavy. I jumped as the reply came in a second later. The person you are trying to reach cannot be found.

  CHAPTER 4

  I walked with extreme caution with Ava into school the next day as I looked every which way I could. This latest text that I’d received had me very much on guard, and I came to school to show this person that there was no way I was gonna let them threaten me into staying home, and I dared them to try something with me. “I’m determined to find out today who the fuck this person is who keeps secretly texting me like this. And that’s pure bullshit that they can’t be found — they can text me but they’re nowhere to be found when I reply to them?! Bullshit! Who the fuck is sending these to me? I don’t like to be threatened — especially with a gun — so they’re really pushing me with this shit. They have no proof of anything that’s happened between me and John and Brad so they better not start any shit around school about it. But when I saw that gun in the text, I can’t help but to think it could be John, you know? Tryin’ to scare me.”

  “Well, everyone has access to those emojis, so it very well could’ve been John or not — I’m personally thinking the latter. But I agree with you, Vanessa. I think that if this person had proof of your involvement with John or Brad, they’ll be sending you videos or pictures of you with one of them or both of them. They’ll have something very incriminating instead of just words through a text because as you know that shit means nothing without the proof,” Ava said.

  “Exactly,” I replied, as I still thought in the back of my mind that this could’ve been John, especially after yesterday when he showed up unannounced at Brad’s, and Brad telling me that he owns a gun.

  We walked into school to a lot of commotion in the halls as we headed to our lockers. We looked at each other as we wondered what was going on as people were laughing at something on their phones or tablet computers. I immediately felt sick to my stomach because I could’ve been the one that everyone was laughing at.

  Natalie Armstrong, who was eighteen and senior like me and Ava, as well as a friend of ours, approached us. “Hey, girls. Did you hear about Ned the Nerd?” she asked us.

  Ned Vaughn, known as Ned the Nerd, was also eighteen and senior like us and was called this because of him being that — a nerd. He had a perfect GPA and had probably tutored most of the students in this school since his freshman year, except for me. He’d never been in trouble so I was definitely interested in what Natalie had to tell us about him.

  “No. What happened?” I asked.

  “Yeah, what’s going on?” Ava asked.

  “He was arrested last night for stealing money out of a cash register at a video game store,” Natalie said with a grin.

  Ava and I looked at each other in shock!

  “Are you fuckin’ serious, Natalie?” Ava asked.

  “Yeah, I am. Here’s his mug shot from the county jail,” Natalie said, and showed us the picture on her phone.

  I looked at it, as did Ava. “Yeah, it’s Ned the N
erd. I wonder what would drive him to steal?” I said.

  “He looks kind of cute without his glasses on,” Ava said with a grin.

  I chuckled. “Yeah, you would say that!”

  “He looks like he’s about to cry, doesn’t he?” Natalie said with a laugh.

  “Yeah, he does. Is he here today?” Ava asked.

  “Yeah, and he looks very embarrassed. Everyone in the hall was laughing at him. I don’t know where he is now,” Natalie said.

  “Who knew about this picture first?” I asked.

  “Zac did. His uncle is a sheriff at the county jail and he has access to all the mug shots and asked Zac did he know Ned since the information on him said that he attended this school. Zac obviously told him that he knew him, so he told Zac to look at the jail’s social media page to see the picture — big mistake. I guess his uncle thought that Zac wasn’t gonna tell everyone to come to the page to look at it, and you know how it is — only one person has to find out about something and it’s everywhere, and what’s worse is that everyone knows that Zac can’t keep anything a secret.”

  “He really can’t,” Ava said.

  I shook my head. “Poor Ned.”

  “To say the least!” Natalie said. “See you girls later.”

  “See ya,” Ava and I said.

  I watched Natalie walk off, and then let out a big sigh of relief.

  Ava looked at me. “What?”

  “I can’t lie, I thought for a second that all the commotion was about me. I just felt sick when I saw people laughing as they looked at their phones and tablet pc’s — I just knew that it was me being caught kissing or having sex with John or Brad, or worse, with both of them. I guess I’m more paranoid than I thought I was about what that latest text said.”

  “Well, as you saw, it’s not about you. Try not to think about it anymore, Vanessa. If this person keeps this shit up, they’re gonna mess up and you’re gonna find out exactly who they are.”

  “Yeah, I hope so,” I replied. I looked down the hall and saw Brad talking to his best friend, Marc, who was also eighteen and a senior. He was also talking with John and Zac. Zac was holding his phone as he laughed, and since Zac was also eighteen and a senior, he should go to jail for having such a big mouth, and I’m surprised that it hasn’t gotten him in trouble. Ava and I began walking to our lockers. I made eye contact with Brad and said hi to him as I walked past him; he nodded to me with a smile in acknowledgement. I pretended like I didn’t see John, even though I could feel him staring at me. “Ava, it feels so weird seeing Brad now since we had sex yesterday!” I whispered to her while we were at our lockers.

  She looked to her right. “He’s still looking at you . . . and so is John,” she informed me with a grin.

  “I don’t wanna look back at either one of them,” I said while I pretended to look for something in my locker. “And this feels fuckin’ weird that I was staring at John through Brad’s shirts in his closet. Shit! I still feel like he knew that I was in that closet, Ava, I don’t know why.”

  “Well, the only way he’s gonna know that for sure is if Brad tells him . . . or you.”

  “And I don’t wanna do that!” I said. I sighed as I started to think about how Brad was waiting for me to make a decision on whether or not I wanted to continue to see him in secret, and I knew that John was still waiting to see if I wanted to come out of a secret relationship with him and be his girlfriend openly, despite him agreeing with me that we should stick to what we agreed on. I still didn’t know what I wanted to do, especially since I had yet to find out if it was John who was sending me the secret texts.

  “Here comes Lisa,” she said.

  I stopped what I was doing but continued to look in my locker. “What is she doing?”

  “Nothing — she’s just standing there talking to Brad and the rest of them. Zac just showed her something on his phone — it’s gotta be Ned’s picture because she’s grinning and shaking her head. She just tapped Brad and said something to him. She’s leaving to class now, more than likely, so you can stop pretending that you’re looking for something,” she said with a grin.

  “Sorry, I can’t help it. Thanks for the play-by-play analysis, Ava.”

  She chuckled. “No problem.”

  “Well, I gotta go to the bathroom. See you at lunch.”

  “Okay,” she said, and went off in the other direction to her class.

  Several minutes later, I came out of the bathroom and was startled by a tap on my shoulder.

  “Hey, baby,” Brad said with a smile.

  “Hi,” I replied with an even bigger smile.

  “Did you see Ned’s mug shot?” he asked.

  “Yeah. How could Zac do that?”

  “Well, you know Zac thinks that everything is funny. Everyone knows he has a big fuckin’ mouth and will take advantage of embarrassing people. For a guy who’s only five-feet-five and less than a hundred forty-five pounds, I say he’s very gutsy.”

  I chuckled as I nodded in agreement. “Me too. As everyone says, he’s five-feet-five in height, but he’s got a mouth that’s fifty-five feet in height!”

  He laughed. “That’s very true! But I feel sorry for Ned — I never thought he would resort to stealing.”

  “Me neither — I wonder what made him do that?”

  “Who knows?” he said. He looked me up and down as he smiled. “But I do know one thing’s for sure, you look very pretty today.”

  I blushed. “Thank you. You look nice today yourself — not that you don’t look nice every day.”

  He touched my cheek as he smiled. “Thanks, baby.”

  I smiled as I looked around to see how most had already gone off to class even though the bell hadn’t rang — but I was really looking around to see if John was anywhere in sight . . . he wasn’t. “Um . . . Brad?”

  “What’s up?”

  I sighed. “Do you think John knew that I was hiding in your closet yesterday?”

  “He didn’t know, Vanessa. I mean, if he suspected that someone was hiding in it then it could’ve been any girl, not necessarily you. But I can’t lie to you, something told me to follow him upstairs to my bedroom to make sure that he went into the bathroom to get the condoms, but he went straight to my closet and that was unusual because I know he didn’t mishear me.”

  “I believe you, and that’s what’s been on my mind, too. I’m still freaked out about it because it’s not like I told you that I was gonna hide in there before I ran up the stairs.”

  He grinned. “I know. Well, I foiled his attempt to find someone in my closet if that’s what he was really trying to do.”

  “And thank goodness that you did!”

  He smiled as he pulled something out of his pocket. “This is for you. See you later,” he said, and then gave me a kiss on my cheek.

  I smiled with great surprise since I wasn’t expecting a gift, but especially over the fact that he kissed me here in the hall where anyone could’ve seen us. “Thank you, Brad.”

  In my first-period Accounting class, I opened the box that he’d given me. It was a pair of beautiful platinum hoop earrings — the kind that I love — I knew that these were very expensive. I took off my cheap silver stud earrings and put my new ones on because I couldn’t wait to wear them since they were so beautiful. But as beautiful as I thought they were, I just had to wonder if he got me these to coerce me into continuing on with our secret relationship instead of staying in one with John. I texted him to thank him for the earrings, and after I did, I put my phone away and paid attention to what was being talked about.

  A minute later, I heard the buzz on my phone that indicated to me that there was a new text; I pulled it out of my bag and looked at it — it was a text from John. Hey, I got the key for 3rd period. Wanna get away for a while? It was either now or never. I needed to tell him the decision that I was gonna make, but then again, I still wasn’t sure what I was gonna say. I texted him back. Hey. Yeah, that’s fine. His response came in seconds la
ter. Can’t wait!

  I sighed as I put my phone by my notebook. I didn’t know how this was gonna go with him, but what I did know was that I was not gonna be intimate with him because I simply didn’t feel like it. I definitely didn’t wanna tell him that because if I did then he wouldn’t have wanted to see me . . . or did he wanna see me about something else? I wondered now if this was a trap, so I tried to figure out if he really wanted to see me to be intimate or did he wanna tell me that he knew that I was hiding in Brad’s closet yesterday, as well as him being the secret texter.

  Since our teacher had her back turned as she wrote on the chalkboard, I picked up my phone and sent a text to Ava about my new earrings as well as sent her a picture of me wearing them; she responded and said that they were beautiful. I also told her about seeing John third period, and she told me to let her know how it went. I put my phone away and pretended to be paying attention, but I was thinking long and hard about what I wanted to say to John when I saw him third period. I couldn’t put this off because the longer I did, the more difficult my decision was gonna be. I also wanted to ask him was he the one sending me these secret texts even though I didn’t think it was him, but on the other hand, I didn’t rule him completely out.

  CHAPTER 5

  I nervously walked towards the storage room since I knew that John was waiting for me. I didn’t wanna waste any time talking to him about what I wanted to talk to him about, even though I still didn’t know what I wanted to tell him. I approached the door. I knocked on it as I looked both ways down the hall to see if anyone was coming. I jumped when it opened.

  John smiled at me. “C’mon in.”

  I walked in and he shut the door behind me. A chill rippled through my body even though it wasn’t cold in the room. I turned towards him and he grabbed me by my waist and immediately started kissing me all over my face and neck. “Um . . . John . . .”